Changes in Computer-Analyzed Facial Expressions with Age

Abstract

Facial expressions are well known to change with age, but the quantitative properties of facial aging remain unclear. In the present study, we investigated the differences in the intensity of facial expressions between older (n = 56) and younger adults (n = 113). In laboratory experiments, the posed facial expressions of the participants were obtained based on six basic emotions and neutral facial expression stimuli, and the intensities of their faces were analyzed using a computer vision tool, OpenFace software. Our results showed that the older adults expressed strong expressions for some negative emotions and neutral faces. Furthermore, when making facial expressions, older adults used more face muscles than younger adults across the emotions. These results may help to understand the characteristics of facial expressions in aging and can provide empirical evidence for other fields regarding facial recognition.

Comparison of Subjective Facial Emotion Recognition and “Facial Emotion Recognition Based on Multi-Task Cascaded Convolutional Network Face Detection” between Patients with Schizophrenia and Healthy Participants

“…The comparison between the three examiners’ subjective FER and the FER based on the MTCNN face detection results in the patient and healthy participant groups revealed no significant differences in the level of agreement ( Table 3 ). Women were reportedly more accurate and faster at recognizing facial expressions than men [ 21 ]. Two of the three examiners were men, and one was a woman, which may have resulted in the differences in the reading of the facial expressions.…”

“…Because FER can significantly differ depending on the age and sex of the examiners [ 21 , 22 ], three examiners were selected to ensure fairness. These comprised Nurse A (a man with less than 10 years of experience), Nurse B (a woman with more than 10 years of experience), and a psychiatrist (a man with more than 10 years of experience).…”

Special Issue “Emotion Intelligence Based on Smart Sensing”

“…Building an emotionally intelligent system requires a better understanding of human facial expression characteristics. The authors of [ 4 ] investigated the differences in the intensity of facial expressions between older (n = 56) and younger adults (n = 113). The participants’ facial expressions were elicited using facial expression stimuli.…”